


King and Lionheart

by deathwailart



Category: Original Work
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Shapeshifting, Thieves Guild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 06:10:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein the king is a fox and king of thieves and the lion is a former guard of the empress who ends up taking up with him.  Part of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/718075/chapters/1330377">this</a> verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	King and Lionheart

Once she guarded the empress until employing shifters fell out of fashion, not fired but strongly encouraged to step down without a fuss. Swallow her pride as it were and hadn't that stung, to be mocked in such a manner? She'd gone to the crows and owls who had told her to leave too and find another place to rest her head at night as she found a new way to make a living even if it was harder for her kind at present with public against them for the most part. She had no desire to be down on her luck and in the gutter begging for scraps or resorting to thievery. The owls warned her about her pride. _There are nobilities you have not heard of yet_ , they had said even though she had scoffed and packed her things, leaving the only home she had ever known. Her family had served generations of nobility; everyone knew lions made the best guards, better even than hounds. But hounds are loyal to the point that even when mistreated they will remain obedient to their masters. The hounds still surround the empress. For now. There's plenty of unrest at the moment because it's impossible for her to shut her ears to the goings on of the world even if she's not strictly part of it these days, guarding those who are part of an underworld as full of intrigue as the word she was cast out of.  
  
She hates when owls are right. They aren't even smug about it.  
  
At the time she came to join a band of foxes she cursed her foolishness for leaping in to stop a shifter being attacked by a man and his thuggish guards who had been bellowing, spitting foul things at a limping young man, bleeding from a leg wound. She'd stepped in because she was already tired of the prejudice that more and more often manifested in open acts of violence. The word fox should have clued her in but she'd fought the man off, pushing the boy behind her so she could find him a doctor. When all the fighting was over she'd had to carry the boy, pain and blood loss making him unable to stand without wobbling violently. He'd thanked her breathlessly before giving her directions and falling silent as she carried him off to what she'd assumed was a doctor. And true, there had been a doctor but she'd walked into a fox den full of thieves living alongside the one they dubbed their king. She'd chased down these foxes before with a pack of hounds when they'd dared to steal from dignitaries or the palace. The fox king had thanked her profusely and would not let her leave until she agreed to take a bed for the night and a meal of gratitude where she could sleep as a woman or a lion.  
  
"How do you know?" She'd asked with suspicion.  
  
"I'm a wily old fox," he'd replied from the bedside of the boy with the sort of look in his eyes she associated more with wolves, "I know many things. Tonight you can rest here where you won't be charged double, indeed you won't be charged at all."  
  
She'd been tired and it was true that palace life had sheltered her from the reality of the way shifters were treated. Lions had commanded respect once as part of the empress' household she had been held in high regard. She hadn't slept well by any stretch of the imagination but she hadn't had to worry about a knife in her back or the hard looks of others who noticed her mark. The same worries had plagued her: what to do with her life. She'd had a certain type of conceit in those days as a guard of the empress; much as the same way their rich never had to worry about money, she hadn't needed to worry about her future. Her father had held his position until retirement whereupon he'd been gifted a cottage and small but still sizeable plot of land. He'd held onto it until a pox had caught him. Before, by all nights, the land should have been claimed by the rulers to be set aside for her in her own old age. No more and the panic had made her sick and sleepless. She'd ended up sitting by the little fox until down where she was summoned to breakfast by the king, seated at his side sharing a trencher of bacon and salted fish with some sort of mulled drink. It had been more satisfying than many of the overly fanciful palace dishes.  
  
"I have a proposition for you," he had begun with a hopeful, guarded smile, "one I hope you are prepared to consider for however long you need to."  
  
"I won't aid you in breaking into the palace," she'd snapped immediately, dimly amazed when he'd bristled at her words.  
  
"I would not stain your honour thus or try to rip your pride from under you lion," which had been said with such quiet venom it had stunned her into silence, slowly chewing a mouthful of her meal. "My offer relates to your services. I am in need of a guard in these dangerous times, you are in need of work. We can each resolve a problem the other has with ease."  
  
"You're a fox and a thief."  
  
"The king of them. Not all foxes are thieves and not all thieves are foxes. Or cats for that matter. And you, noble lion, are still a cat when all else is stripped away." That had been her turn to bristle, enough so that she left the table to stalk off, up to the city proper to wander around aimlessly.  
  
The rest is history, she thinks now. Oh it wasn't as easy as all that but each night she had gone to sleep in the den, had spoken to the boy she'd saved as he healed and what coin she could slip them she did to help with the meals. It felt wrong, to accept their hospitality indefinitely without offering anything in return. Now she earns her own keep, has since she said yes when she actually stopped to look at what they did. Never stealing from those who don't deserve it, stealing from those who are rich and powerful, the dashing fox who gives to beggars and always pays for his things unless he's been cheated in the past. It was with a certain level of smugness that she watched them cheat those who hated the shifters even though there was often violence and she found herself needed at all times. Like tonight. Tonight she is not smug, she is furious in a way she has been only a few times in her life because this king fox is as stubborn as an ox when he wants to be and though he's meant to listen to her advice, there are occasions when he seems to defy her and fight when he's against opponents who will overpower him every time.  
  
Foxes have stealth and speed. What he goes up against have hatred and brute strength.  
  
From his spot on the bed, wrapped in bandages, she catches him smirking and scowls fiercely. She isn't speaking to him right now as she guards him even here in the den because tonight has everyone on edge; one wrong move, a fraction of an inch deeper and he would be dead and she would have failed him and herself. Her hands rest on her sword and pistol, fingers twitching every so often to remind herself that they're there within easy reach should anyone get in. Unlikely given the defences she has painstakingly helped put together in her horror at how much they depended on a labyrinthine structure to stop intruders. All those arguments here in his rooms or in hers late into the night as he defended his thieves and their ability to know every nook and cranny of a place so they would never be caught off guard as she stuck to her guns, talking of the palace, routines, real traps or patrols to keep unwanted elements out. He'd groaned but he'd still been smiling when he said she'd turn their den into a fortress.  
  
"Please don't wear a hole in the carpet, it was very expensive," he finally says from the bed, a rustle of fabric accompanying his words. She is more than half-tempted to shift her shape and snarl at him properly, all teeth and fur and claws but she holds back.  
  
"Pity you don't value your life as much as petty possessions," she retorts with her head held high, back straight, shoulders back. If this had happened in her old life she would have been punished whether it was her fault or not and she would never have dared to answer back to the empress. She would have been on her knees begging forgiveness between apologies.  
  
Sometimes she's still taken aback by the change in her life.  
  
"Are you so angry with me lion?"  
  
"You could have been _killed_ you idiot - why hire me to do a job if you aren't going to let me do it?"  
  
"I have had worse." She huffs out an aggrieved sigh at that and there's more rustling as he tries to sit up and she could leave him, she could let him struggle but she marches over to the bed to steady him. "Thank you." From the tone of his voice and the way his hand lingers on her wrist she knows he means more than just this little exchange. With a sigh and a smile she sits next to him and lets him start to talk about his plans for their next heist, how he'll take over the town. She makes notes in her head for all the things she'll need, the training she'll have to put others through to make sure they're prepared for the day they finally take over this town and beyond. She prefers this den to the palace, this king to the empress.  
  
She still hates the owls for being right.


End file.
